From "Republicans and Democrats divided over Jan. 6 insurrection and Trump’s culpability, Post-UMD poll finds" (WaPo).
I'm always inclined to say the government is doing well enough, and you shouldn't underestimate the downside of change and the relative value of working within the system, even if it's time-consuming and onerous.
Here's my post from July 4, 2016, "In the American Revolution, would you have been a Loyalist?"
The second commenter asked me to answer the question, and I said: "Isn't it obvious? Why do you think I put up this post. I've admitted it many times. Perhaps not on this blog, but Meade knows." Was that enigmatic?! I know I'd be cutting the king a lot of slack. He's doing well enough, and the alternative is chaos!
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123 comments:
It's interesting to read the Declaration and realize how weak the list of grievances is. Where are the gulags? Star chamber justice? Mass executions? Confiscation of land?
I would not have been a loyalist. But I probably would not have been in the vanguard of revolutionaries.
Revolutions rarely work out as the rebels think they will.
I’m Burke at heart, not Paine.
"Ever" and "never" are absolute terms.
If asked that question as phrased, how could one say violence against the government is NEVER justified? That excludes all circumstances and situations from consideration.
Serious Question:
Of ALL the violent actions committed against the US Government...
How many WEREN'T done by Democrats? More Specifically how many were done by Republicans?
(you Puerto Ricans out there; Was 1954 a democrat thing? a republican thing? a neither thing?)
I think, we can all agree that Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground were democrats?
At least; NOT repubicans? right?
[this brings up a side issue! Robert Cook? do you consider Bill Ayers to be left wing?]
Jeff Davis and his buddies; we're counting THEM as demos, right?
I know the poll is taken in the context of January 6, but there is no way I'd vote that violence is "never justified." Hitler? Stalin? Mao? Courage is a question. Moral justification isn't.
In making the self-assessment of which side a person might have chosen when the Shot Heard Round the World was fired (04/19/1775), transporting yourself back to that time is essential. Like Clarence taking George back to a time when George never existed.
Here, you would be placed in a time and place when/where you did not know the wonder that an independent USA would become. All you knew was life under George III. Remaining a Loyalist was to be a conservative (a surprising admission from AA). Choosing the alternative was seen as reactionary, a step into the unknown.
So,
74% of today's democrats would feel that violent action against the F*CKING NAZIS is 'never justified'?
Bob_R said...
It's interesting to read the Declaration and realize how weak the list of grievances is.
HEY! they were letting people (soldiers) live in peoples houses... RENT FREE!!!
if THAT'S not worth going to war over; what is??
King George III transported large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
And then what?
Click through to the 2016 blog post to see a Yale historians reasons why people at the time were Loyalists. I'll just copy the reasons:
"They were older, better established, and resisted radical change.
They felt that rebellion against the Crown—the legitimate government—was morally wrong.
They were alienated when the Patriots resorted to violence, such as burning houses and tarring and feathering.
They wanted to take a middle-of-the road position and were angry when forced by the Patriots to declare their opposition.
They had a long-standing sentimental attachment to Britain (often with business and family links).
They were procrastinators who realized that independence was bound to come someday, but wanted to postpone the moment.
They were cautious and afraid that chaos and mob rule would result.
Some were pessimists who lacked the confidence in the future displayed by the Patriots. Others recalled the dreadful experiences of many Jacobite rebels after the failure of the last Jacobite rebellion as recently as 1745 who often lost their lands when the Hanoverian government won.
"Other reasons:
They felt a need for order and believed that Parliament was the legitimate authority.
In New York, powerful families had assembled colony-wide coalitions of supporters, Men long associated with the DeLancey faction went along when its leadership decided to support the crown
They felt themselves to be weak or threatened within American society and in need of an outside defender such as the British Crown and Parliament.
They had been promised freedom from slavery by the British.
They felt that being a part of the British Empire was crucial in terms of commerce and their business operations."
I can't read the WAPO article, but the pictures at the top call to mind the Jan. 6 protests in DC.
I wonder what the poll results would have been if the pictures had been BLM protests and George Floyd imagery?
serious question
of the 74% of democrats that answered NEVER... How do THEY feel about AnteFa?
“Prudence indeed will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shown, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.”
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.", Thomas Jefferson.
Sounds intemperate and lunatic today, doesn't it? You cannot know what the times may bring. Even in your own lives. Never say never. With the likes of Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and dozens of others including our thoroughly corrupt FBI, CIA, DoJ, et. al, parading around as 'the good guys' and portraying anyone who questions them, or voted for Trump as potential White Supremacists and Domestic Terrorists, one would almost think they -our Government- are pining for a skirmish.
No one wants a revolution, except perhaps the far left which has chanted for it for years- most recently as they burned our cities in the summer of 2020. But when this country ceases to be this country as the manual (our Constitution) lays out, there will come a time when some may see the need to take action against said Government.
Not me, of course. It's Football Sunday.
Whether I would have been a loyalist or a revolutionary would heavily depend on my personal and family circumstances. Whether I would have reached the end of my tether or thought it important to keep trying to work out our differences.
But to the question of whether violence against the government is sometimes justified, what kind of simpering fool would say no, never? As a hypothetical question, the answer is none, no one is that kind of simpering fool. 100% of respondents know the answer is yes, violence is sometimes justified. The people who said no suffered a failure of imagination. Those Germans who took arms against the Nazis were wrong? Really? Russians against Stalin, Cambodians against Pol Pot? All wrong? Really?
Don’t bury the lede: Independents are more likely to say yes than uniparty members are.
Now do the poll when the Republicans control as much of the federal government as the Democrats do currently.
The protests on Jan 6 should've been all women going in and taking their tops offs.
Now that I think about it, all protests should be women taking their tops off.
"I wonder what the poll results would have been if the pictures had been BLM protests and George Floyd imagery?"
I don't think people who support the protests and BLM generally also supported the violence that came along with it. They may have resisted criticizing it and favored leniency toward those who engaged it it, but I don't think any substantial number of Americans actually supported the violence.
It's similar to the way a lot of Trump supporters would like to go easy on those who broke into the Capitol even as they also wish that violence didn't happen. And by the way, I don't notice anyone saying they wish there had been more violence on January 6th.
I find the poll questions hard to answer in their exact form.
Do I think violence against our current government is justified? No, absolutely not. I have a lot of criticisms of our current government, but violence is not the way to address them.
Could I imagine our current government mutating (sorry) into a form where violence against it was justified? Yes, I could, and much more easily than I could have years ago. It has been shocking to me to learn how corrupt institutions I used to trust have become.
I hate to say that, but I believe it.
"...but I don't think any substantial number of Americans actually supported the violence."
I would strongly disagree with you on this. Why then have so many of our American cities, run by those who supported the 'peaceful protests', also proceeded to defund their police, cut budgets, or otherwise handcuff their local law enforcement to the point that has driven hundreds of police to leave the force in cities like Chicago, Seattle, Portland, and others? The result of their support is a nation of record breaking crime, and a once-in-a-generation demographic movement from the North to the South.
Oh, I think the Democrats smiling approval of the riots- right down to supplying the funds, the weapons, and the bail money (I'm looking at you, Vice President Harris) shows that they most definitely supported the violence. They had a means to an end. The end was to get rid of Trump. The means was chaos.
I think it's naiveté to say that most who supported the BLM didn't support what comes with BLM. Some- perhaps. Most? It seems we got what most wanted.
That question is very difficult for me. I’m both a conservative and contrarian. Much of it would depend upon who were friends were.
"you shouldn't underestimate the downside of change and the relative value of working within the system"
So how does that maxim apply to an election in which voting rules were drastically changed and Dems did not work within the system?
It's familiar problem for people with conservative instincts, of course. Progs massively change some rules, then say: consider the downside of change! gotta work within the system as it now exists! be a true conservative true to your conservative truths!
I have a lawyer friend who is conservative and very religious. Occasionally he talks about the red states leaving the Union. I’m against that, but I have come to realize I have nothing - and I do mean nothing - in common with today’s Democrats. Two movies on one screen.
If the Dems cheat again in 2024 and install Biden again, then all hell might break loose.
"HEY! they were letting people (soldiers) live in peoples houses... RENT FREE!!!
if THAT'S not worth going to war over; what is??"
Come to think of it, the eviction moratorium did the same thing. We missed our chance to go to war over it.
They may have resisted criticizing it and favored leniency toward those who engaged it it
Because they thought it was "justified".
Thinking something was justified is not the same as supporting it. For example, suppose a woman in fear of her life killed an abusive, stalker ex-husband by tricking him into a game of croquet and bonking him on the head with her mallet when he was focused on a sticky wicket. I might decide her action was justified, but that doesn't mean I support killing problem people with croquet mallets.
IMO, if the poll question had been in the context of police shootings, many more Dems would have been thinking violence against the government could sometimes be "justified."
I suppose the pictures I referred to are on the reporting about the poll, not on the poll itself. Like I said, I couldn't read the whole article and I don't know what context the poll questions were framed in. Was it a series of questions all in the context of the Jan 6 protests?
"HEY! they were letting people (soldiers) live in peoples houses... RENT FREE!!!
if THAT'S not worth going to war over; what is??"
Not saying the revolution wasn't justified. It was, and it might turn out to be successful. (Too soon to tell - to coin a phrase.) Just saying that George III didn't hold a candle to the French or Belgium management of their colonies or modern Hitler, Stalin, Mao examples.
I'm always inclined to say the government is doing well enough, and you shouldn't underestimate the downside of change and the relative value of working within the system, even if it's time-consuming and onerous.
As much as I criticize the gov, I still find this to be true of myself, and in some way gets to the root of why I tend not to vote. Not that I don’t have my own political convictions. I do, but also realize I’m powerless to change things, and have no desire to convince people of my point of view.
No one can say what they would have been 250 years ago. That's ridiculous. You're a creature of modern times and modern sensibilities, you have nothing in common with those people, you know nothing about then. Your behavior then would have been strictly predicated on factors you can't even imagine tangential to your thoughts today.
Yeah.
My great-great-great-great-grandfather was a Loyalist. He got thrown into jail in Hartford for six moths after the Revolution and moved to Canada, leaving his sons here in the US. In 1811 his eldest son sold his farm in NY to his brothers and moved to Canada to take over the farm before the old man died. About one-third of the US population were Loyalists. Kenneth Roberts wrote a great novel, Oliver Wiswell, from the Loyalist point of view.
The poll question, not the 2016 question, is bit more holistic to me. Do I think violence against our current government is justified? No. Do I think violence on Jan. 6th was justified? No, I thought Officer Byrd over reacted. Jan. 6th was about as rowdy as the Kavanaugh hearings and downright peaceful compared to BLM rallies in DC earlier in the year. Do I think sometimes governments get overly oppressive and violence is justified (which is how I take that poll question)? Yes, which is why we have a 2nd Amendment.
Revolutions rarely work out as the rebels think they will.
Yes. American Exceptionalism aside.
They may have resisted criticizing it and favored leniency toward those who engaged it it, but I don't think any substantial number of Americans actually supported the violence.
then Why did they contribute money for bail when Kamela Harris asked them to?
"...but I have come to realize I have nothing - and I do mean nothing - in common with today’s Democrats. Two movies on one screen."
David, that is quite a statement. Living in Chicago, I have lots of friends who are Democrats. We have a lot in common, but we disagree on politics. They are lovely people. They are embarrassed by Biden, but they could not stand Trump. His ego, his vulgarity, his poor deportment, his "us vs. them" rhetoric offended them deeply and still does. I think Biden is worse, but they don't.
In most of these elections, we are offered two poor choices. People pick what they perceive to be the lesser of two evils. No one could view Trump's business antics and hyper-salesmanship of the PT Barnum variety without having severe doubts about electing him president. He did some great things as president, and I confidently voted to re-elect him. But that Jan. 6 rally had danger written all over it. His enemies are going to try to slay him with the sword he handed to them. He did this to himself.
Members of my family were Loyalists, which is how they ended up in Canada.
Amadeus:
I meant I have nothing with today’s Dem politics. And the politics bleeds over to other things. Heck, I got kicked off a Creighton basketball forum due to my conservative politics that was expressed solely in an OT forum.
I would define "support" in this context to include advocating for leniency, or for any other measures that would tend to mitigate the adverse consequences that the perpetrators would otherwise receive for their crimes. If you think that someone who commits a particular act of violence should go to prison for ten years, but argue that THESE particular violent offenders should only get one year because of the political/social nature of their crimes, then you are supporting political/social violence.
100 cities were burning the year before last, courthouses were under mortar attacks, and the dems said it was totes fine, a little delta house jamboree, where blutowski nor d day, were pinched and that's an 'insurrection',
Failure and futility haunt Irish lives. I think that is partly due to all those failed rebellions in Ireland. The peasants show up with their rusty pikes and maybe a rich kid with his father's shotgun and then they get mowed down or transported to Australia. Even the one rebellion that succeeded, the Easter Rebellion, led to DeValera and more failure and futility....The American Adam. We are born anew in this country when we identify as Americans. There's a successful revolution we can claim as our own and be proud of. Futility is not the subtext of our efforts and striding.
we can go further back to january 20th, where riots were so severe that a limo burned on connecticut avenue, that delegates to the event were going to be poisoned, and all charges were dropped records expunged
Libertarians, conservatives and classic liberals make the loyalist determination based on the actions of the government regardless of partisanship.
Democrats and their consorts* make the determination based on partisanship and personalities regardless of the actions of the government. For example, is anyone really stupid enough to believe that QuidProJoe’s open borders, energy dependence, failed Covid policies and inflation are in the best interests of Americans? No, but Democrats+ for the most part are loyal to QuidProJoe as opposed to Trump, under whom we suffered none of those negatives, or any other high profile Repub.
Think about the line of succession. Biden to Harris to Pelosi. Good lord!
From the perspective of normals, Democrats and their consorts are destroying the country in so many ways, but revolution? Probably not.
*Including many Republican electeds..
the dems enabled 'the resistance' in the bureaucracy to hobble trump, the so called 'antifa' to burn loot and kill, then they get on their high horse over delta house, pshaw
the irish failure over the rising led to their 'neutral' stance with Germany, and later their tacit support by the soviets and libya, over the course of 80 years,
Common Sense provides the answers to that list of why people were Loyalists.
And remember, Independence and the Declaration were not decided upon until a year of the official government warring against the colonists. The Founders had tried and tried and tried to maintain relations with the Crown, which in turn only further oppressed them.
Here's a little known or celebrated fact. People prefer tyranny to anarchy. It's better to have one despot exploiting you in a systematic and orderly way than to have a bunch of free lance thugs taking random bites out of your flesh. People stuck with the Roman Empire for centuries not because it was fair, just, and equitable but because it was a better deal than being endlessly pillaged and plundered by the neighboring tribes. Rebellion is more likely to produce anarchy than freedom....Hussein, Qaddaffi, et al. were tyrants but, as we have seen, there are worse fates than living under tyranny.
They are lovely people. They are embarrassed by Biden, but they could not stand Trump. His ego, his vulgarity, his poor deportment, his "us vs. them" rhetoric offended them deeply and still does. I think Biden is worse, but they don't.
Let's be honest here -- they would oppose ANY Republican and condemn him or her for all sorts of evils. They probably even thought that Romney and McCain were far right extremists and opposed them. Almost certainly, they have never voted for a Republican at the state or local level.
I probably would have been a loyalist, but it's hard to say what one would have thought and done in a time when political passions ran high. You (and me) wouldn't be "you" (and "me") in those circumstances. Who we were and what we did would have been influenced the latest outrages we heard about, rather than based on some conclusion we come to through basic principles and "rational" reflection.
Do we really have nothing in common? I'm struck by how similar people of very different political opinions are. They seem to have the same personality traits and they live in very similar ways. The big difference is that one lives in a red state and the other lives in a blue state. Much of the time, it seems like political attitudes are pre-programmed by the media bubble one lives in and not the result of either reason or experience.
Is something like that is always the case, even at times when people are killing each other over politics? Most likely not. But I do suspect that we think we are farther apart than we are, at least when it comes to how we go about our daily lives.
My own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear as a ray of light. Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it?
What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king or a common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by an individual villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the root of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other.
Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man. I conceive likewise a horrid idea in receiving mercy from a being, who at the last day shall be shrieking to the rocks and mountains to cover him, and fleeing with terror from the orphan, the widow, and the slain of America.
https://www.ushistory.org/paine/crisis/c-01.htm
Republicans say, “What insurrection?” And that’s how you know which side the WaPo is on.
"I think, we can all agree that Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground were democrats?
At least; NOT repubicans? right?"
Ten or so years ago, the Nation published a review of a book called Days of Rage, which was highly critical of the far left underground movements of the late 60s, and into the late 70s. The review was very positive, and supported the book's theme that these movements were harmful and did not help the causes they, in theory, supported. The Nation is, to put it mildly, left leaning, and even they draw the line at extremist action. Or, at least, they did then.
It's important to make distinctions. The Weather Underground and the Panthers were far, far left--Marxist, in fact.
One of the mistakes liberals made was to allow intemperate disagreement with the other side to become the standard. Paul Krugman called every GOP presidential candidate an extremist right winger--even McCain. He did irreparable harm. Now, everybody--or, at least, everyone who gets media attention--if far left or far right. Guys like Krugman and Harry Reid set the standard, so it's not surprising that guys like Trump and Carlson rose up as a reaction to that kind of extremism.
I don't see Americans supporting violent change, though. The extremists control the narrative, but if something happens that interrupts folks' wi fi service so they can't stream Netflix or check social media, they'll demand a return to calm. One Jan 6th event is fine, just as a few weeks of BLM is OK for some. I just don't see anyone aside from far right and far left enthusiasts tolerating sustained "revolutionary action."
Most people would be loyalists, if only to avoid the discomfort, pain, and uncertainty of confronting an established order that is known to be intolerant and violent a la Jan6 congressional and capitol hill police, several officers, some who committed self-abortion, excluded. That said, over 16 trimesters of nationwide, broadcast, and legislative insurrections to sustain the old order. Demos-cracy is aborted in darkness.
The other day I'm walking past the local Festivus pole. Yes, some clever soul tacked a sign onto a pole for the public to vent their grievances. People are upset about "capitalism," "people who don't believe in science," and "people who think that the 2020 election was stolen." My grievance is the "stupid president" and the "lying media." If the neighbors wanted to start a revolution, like they did almost 250 years ago, I wouldn't join them. But I don't believe I'd fight on the other side, either, because in spite of everything, we do have things in common.
It seems like people are demanding a whole country of people who live like themselves, and it's an either/or thing: you can't mix and match. You have to feel anger, hatred, contempt, fear and all the rest when it comes to people whose tastes and prejudices don't coincide with one's own. But the sane people may be the one's who can mix and match, the people who can like country music and NASCAR and church and vote for Biden, or like opera and restaurants with strange names and foreign films and vote for Trump.
Seventy years ago, Harold Rosenberg described his generation of intellectuals as a "herd of independent minds and David Riesman was writing about the "other-directed" Americans. There was still a belief, though, that learning and culture and greater access to information would help us to reach "autonomy" and make us able to think for ourselves. That doesn't seem to have happened.
" Why then have so many of our American cities, run by those who supported the 'peaceful protests', also proceeded to defund their police, cut budgets, or otherwise handcuff their local law enforcement to the point that has driven hundreds of police to leave the force in cities like Chicago, Seattle, Portland, and others?"
To want no punishment for law breakers is not an expression of approval of the wrong they have done. Many people value forgiveness. Many have taken to heart the teachings of Jesus: "Turn the other cheek," "Judge not, that ye be not judged," "Today you will be with me in Paradise"...
Many people see the government as institutionalized violence that is more dangerous and destructive than the meager offenses of private citizens. Some idealistically believe that setting an example of kindness and forgiveness will work out better in the long run. These people are not pro-violence.
Many people value forgiveness.
Forgiveness and incapacitation to commit further harm are not incompatible.
The most American thing you can do is take up arms against your tyrannical government.
"I don't think people who support the protests and BLM generally also supported the violence that came along with it. They may have resisted criticizing it and favored leniency toward those who engaged it it, but I don't think any substantial number of Americans actually supported the violence."
You are incredibly naive. Their very actions demonstrate beyond any doubt that the leadership of the Democratic Party supported it. They even raised funds to bail these people out on the few occasions any of them were ever arrested.
Most of the Colonial Americans were loyalists from what I’ve read. As with most big events, the Patriots were small in number but highly motivated and eventually had to transition from revolutionaries to statesmen and convince enough to vote for the constitution and create the excellent experiment in which we still live.
Recommend the new biography of George III by George Roberts.
If you read the arguments of the 18th Century Tories, they're very reminiscent today's State-fellating "liberals." Of course, if you read the writings of their adversaries, the Whigs, they could have been written, with some change in the vocabulary, by modern libertarians.
Remembver the Coffee Party? They were the masochistic "liberal" answer to the tax rebel Tea Party. I often thought they should have named their group after Maj. John Pitcairn. He was the Royal Marine oficer who shouted at the Minutemen at Lexington, "Disperse, ye damned rebels!"
My Scots-Irish heritage makes me tend toward the revolutionary side, though I would probably be more like Abraham Woodhull than like Thomas Paine.
"Freedom is simply chaos with better lighting" Alan Dean Foster
Whatever good there was in being a Tory is sundered by the immorality of bowing to England’s noble class. I would die in rebellion rather than see my children scrape before a well birthed but stupid class. England was rotten to the core, just look at India. There is no justification for condemning the virtue of our revolution. There is no justification for condemning the Native American wars, but the Indians lost, and in a less morally perfect time.
“To want no punishment for law breakers is not an expression of approval of the wrong they have done. Many people value forgiveness. Many have taken to heart the teachings of Jesus: "Turn the other cheek," "Judge not, that ye be not judged," "Today you will be with me in Paradise"...
Many people see the government as institutionalized violence that is more dangerous and destructive than the meager offenses of private citizens. Some idealistically believe that setting an example of kindness and forgiveness will work out better in the long run. These people are not pro-violence.”
I guess this explains why the Jan 6 protestors were forgiven and not prosecuted.
"I think, we can all agree that Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground were democrats?
"At least; NOT repubicans? right?
"[this brings up a side issue! Robert Cook? do you consider Bill Ayers to be left wing?]"
Why do you think in such strictly binary terms? Why assume politically engaged Americans can only be either Republican or Democrat? Whether or not the members of the Weather Underground were raised in Democrat or Republican households is irrelevant. (I'd bet you would find members of WU who were raised in D and R households.) Once they set their aims upon overthrow of the prevailing political order, their actions (and pronouncements, if any) reveal they have rejected both mainstream political parties, seeing each as equally "part of the problem," and neither as "part of the solution."
I would guess Bill Ayers is and was some sort of leftist, (as there is no one model of leftist), but I have no idea of the particulars of his political views then or now.
To want no punishment for law breakers is not an expression of approval of the wrong they have done.
Right. Which is what I was arguing above. The poll asks if you believe violence is ever justified, not if you support violence.
The people you describe are willing to let violence go unpunished in some cases, but not all the time, only in those particular cases where they consider there is some justification for the violence.
The people you are talking about are not so Christ-like in their feelings about the violent actions of the Jan 6 rioters because they don't think that violence had justification. Thye believe the BLM narrative. They don't believe the stolen election narrative.
I think it's clear that the poll results would be different if the focus had been on the actions of BLM rioters. I think if responders were thinking about police violence and race they would have easily imagined circumstances in which violence against the government might be justified and they would have felt righteous in saying so. As it is, they were thinking about people they have no sympathy for and therefore they felt righteous in saying violence is never justified.
Bob_R said:
It's interesting to read the Declaration and realize how weak the list of grievances is. Where are the gulags? Star chamber justice? Mass executions? Confiscation of land?
Bingo! I had the same reaction when I got around to actually reading the Declaration of Independence.
Must reading: Governor Hutchinson's response to the Declaration.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/1776-hutchinson-strictures-upon-the-declaration-of-independence
https://alphahistory.com/americanrevolution/thomas-hutchinson-responds-independence-1776/
Hutchinson's response makes the Declaration sound like typical modern-day political hystrionics. When you read the Declaration, you sense how weak it is, but when you read Hutchinson, you see how dishonest it is.
Ann Althouse said...
[" Why then have so many of our American cities, run by those who supported the 'peaceful protests', also proceeded to defund their police, cut budgets, or otherwise handcuff their local law enforcement to the point that has driven hundreds of police to leave the force in cities like Chicago, Seattle, Portland, and others?"]
"To want no punishment for law breakers is not an expression of approval of the wrong they have done. Many people value forgiveness. Many have taken to heart the teachings of Jesus: "Turn the other cheek," "Judge not, that ye be not judged," "Today you will be with me in Paradise"..."
Forgiveness by an individual for wrongs suffered is what was being addressed in context. Even with forgiveness, once there is a breach of trust, you can let go of the hate while still enforcing consequences relative to whatever loss occurred from the wrong - such as requiring restitution, or no longer trusting the offender implicitly.
"Many people see the government as institutionalized violence that is more dangerous and destructive than the meager offenses of private citizens. Some idealistically believe that setting an example of kindness and forgiveness will work out better in the long run. These people are not pro-violence."
The "No Justice, No Peace" people would like a word.
In the US, it hasn't quite reached the point where I would say violence is justified, but the present direction of movement is going to get me there eventually, if I live long enough.
The American Revolution is quite different from any other revolution in history- the writings of the men who led it would have convinced me were I alive at the time and an adult of any age. Of course, those writings could easily have turned out to be a fraud to cover for much baser motivations, but you can't find similar writings from any other revolution's leadership- not even the French managed it. The American Revolution is pretty fucking unique.
"Why then have so many of our American cities, run by those who supported the 'peaceful protests', also proceeded to defund their police, cut budgets, or otherwise handcuff their local law enforcement to the point that has driven hundreds of police to leave the force in cities like Chicago, Seattle, Portland, and others? The result of their support is a nation of record breaking crime, and a once-in-a-generation demographic movement from the North to the South."
What (and how "many") cities, exactly, have actually defunded their police departments, "cut budgets, or otherwise handcuff(ed) their local law enforcement" agencies? If there are any who have done so, how and to what extent have those cities defunded or "handcuffed" their police? To the extent violent crime has increased, how do you know what factors have caused this increase?
"I know I'd be cutting the king a lot of slack."
- The power in the UK was the English parliament.
- The beef the colonies had was with the English parliament (who wanted to recoup some of the costs the UK had incurred in the defense of said colonies in the latest war).
- The pretensions the colonies had was that they and the UK were under direct rule of the king and were thus equal partners with the UK (nicely forgetting that if they were equal partners then why would the UK have to pay for the cost of the colonies defense).
- And that by taking the part of the UK the king had betrayed them.
In other words, giving poor George the III the black jack was pure propaganda
Btw, hearing Americans speak of the revolution as if they broke free of a terrible tyranny is such BS (*). Every country in the world has had it a lot worse. It was a probably inevitable national divorce not an escape from the devil's minions.
(*) see for example John Adams as "Counsel for the British: Boston Massacre". Good for your 2nd president. But what strange 'tyranny' that lets its soldiers be arrested and tried for murder.
"To want no punishment for law breakers is not an expression of approval of the wrong they have done."
But many people on the left actively supported the violence. They did not think it was wrong in the first place.
"Many people value forgiveness."
Since progressives did not think riots were wrong, there was nothing to forgive.
"the meager offenses of private citizens"
Public looting and violence, triggering breakdown in public order reflected in increased killing: "meager."
"Some idealistically believe that setting an example of kindness and forgiveness will work out better in the long run."
But no one of the left views letting rioters and looters get off as "kindness."
"These people are not pro-violence."
They are, provided it's violence by the right people agains the right targets.
Blogger Yancey Ward said...
"I don't think people who support the protests and BLM generally also supported the violence that came along with it . . .
You are incredibly naive. Their very actions demonstrate beyond any doubt that the leadership of the Democratic Party supported it. They even raised funds to bail these people out on the few occasions any of them were ever arrested."
True. But of course you (and I) are wasting pixels in trying to persuade Althouse otherwise. Better to take her comments as a data point: she will rationalize anything, and the nice women of America will not oppose the devastation of public order. It's matter of kindness, you see. Those mean Republicans should listen to Christ, I kid you not.
"Btw, hearing Americans speak of the revolution as if they broke free of a terrible tyranny is such BS"
Oh, nuts.
"What Jefferson was saying was, 'Hey! You know, we left this England place because it was bogus. So if we don't get some cool rules ourselves, pronto, we'll just be bogus too!'"
- noted political philosopher Jeffrey Spiccoli
gilbar said...
(you Puerto Ricans out there; Was 1954 a democrat thing? a republican thing? a neither thing
The shooting up of congress by Puerto Rican independence advocates was a "neither". They wanted independence and socialism. They certainly wanted nothing to do with either party or the us government.
This would clearly seem to fit the legal usc definition of "insurrection" but they were not charged with "insurrection.
They were charged with and convicted of murder and assault according to Wikipedia
John LGBTQBNY Henry
I would have been a revolutionary.
The Americans who lived on the frontier -- e.g., the Mohawk River Valley -- were swift converts to the revolutionary cause, as a result of the widespread and frequent Britsh-sponsored depredations by Native Americans of frontier settlements and homesteads. The cruelty and savagery of Native Americans, actively fomented and financed by the British, were really off the charts.
In 1950 or so a huge poll was done across India to see how people felt about the Brits leaving.
Some large majority had not even realized the broader had been there. I take this to mean that who ruled the country had little impact on most daily lives.
I expect that in the 1770-1790 period there were large numbers of people who knew nothing about the revolting or the war. They were too busy just trying to keep themed and their families alive to worry about much about politics.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
If people were as cynical in the 1770s as we are now, would there have been a Revolution? You hear great, inspiring speeches about freedom, and then find out that the speakers are smugglers and slave traders or rich slaveowners indebted to British merchants, and maybe you think, I'll stick with the king and the way things are now. Of course, we aren't cynical about everything nowadays, and you can find people passionately believing things that you and I know not to be true or helpful. We also live in passionate and tumultuous times when people get carried away by emotion.
It's been speculated that there was some relationship between slavery and freedom, that slaveowners understood what slavery meant and wanted to avoid becoming slaves themselves, or that slaveowners experienced such a degree of "freedom" in dealing with their workforce that any restriction of their freedom of action was liable to be more keenly resented by slaveowners than by people whose possibilities were more restricted by circumstances. I guess that view of the Revolution has become more widespread lately.
I'd suggest, though, that revolutions against tyranny or arbitrary rule or oppressive social orders had to begin where the yoke was relatively light. Uprisings in more repressive societies would have been too easily crushed. The American Revolution, milder than other revolutions and fought against a regime that was less oppressive than many other regimes in the world, was necessary for other revolutions to start and be successful.
When foreigners object that America's Revolution wasn't justified by severe oppression, Americans can point out that revolutions against other, more repressive regimes started with our own Revolution -- and when we Americans shrink in horror from what the world's other revolutionaries did, we have to live with the knowledge that we helped to get that started as well (and since everything was preceded by something else, the British can say that we got the idea from them in the first place).
My family (paternal grandfather side) has been in NC since 1704 and part of it was in Suffolk County VA before then having been exiled from being on the losing side in the War of the Roses. Another side (paternal grandmother side) is descended from the Hanau-Hessians who emigrated to the PA Deutch country in 1750, and then down the wagon road to the Salisbury area of NC. The maternal grandmother's side also emigrated from England in the early 1700's and settled in Anson County by the mid 1700's. The maternal grandfater's side also emigrated to NC from England in the 1780's and also settled in Anson County. To the best we can document through two family books, ancestry searches and Union County (formerly Anson County) courthouse records, all four sides of my family fought in the Revolutionary War and all but one, a Hugh McCain who was captured and hanged by British soldiers, survived the war and all eventually settled in the Wilderness in What is now Union County, NC. In fact, we have not found a single ancestor in my direct line who fought for either the British side during the Revolutionary War or the Union side in the Civil War. Obviously, I come from a long line of rebels and there is little doubt which side I would have been on.
I know I'd be cutting the king a lot of slack. He's doing well enough, and the alternative is chaos!
Yet you couldn't bring yourself to vote for Trump.
Violence is sometimes justified, but the bar has to be high. Or I have to be high in a bar.
I'm always inclined to say the government is doing well enough,
Is that because you've got yours and don't much care about people who are struggling to make ends meet?
and you shouldn't underestimate the downside of change
True enough, as far as it goes, but now go explain this to Antifa and the Obama supporters who voted for "change you can believe in." Your concern about the downside of change strikes this skeptical reader as being targeted strictly at the right side of the political spectrum.
and the relative value of working within the system, even if it's time-consuming and onerous.
What's the value of working within the system if the FBI can generate bogus charges against you (e.g., General Michael Flynn) or you can be impeached on bogus charges?
Phild,
The King of England has always had the ultimate power. Elizabeth still does.
They have delegated most of it to parliament but they still have it. It was not parliament that refused to assent (in the declaration) to our laws but king George.
The royal (not British) Navy takes an oath not to england or parliament or even to "The Queen" in the abstract. As the wehrmacht did with Hitler, they take an oath to "queen Elizabeth" personally.
All laws must still be approved by the queen.
Boris Johnson is not England's prime Minister, he is Elizabeth's pm.
And so on
You can argue that these are technicalities and you are right. At least for the moment. But law is nothing but technicalities.
If George or Liz decided to exercise their powers the claim is that there would be a "constitutional crisis" but in a country with no constitution, what does this even mean? Other than General unhappiness.
Would the military be loyal to Liz or parliament? If parliament, they are breaking their oath and are, legally, "Traitors".
I agree that George delegated much to and was largely driven by, parliament. But he was still the ultimate authority and it was him with whom we had the beef.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
The reason the state takes on the role of law enforcement is so that it is fair and equitable. The goal is to mete out justice in such a way that the citizens clearly know what is allowed and not allowed and the consequences for doing what is not allowed. When the government fails to do its job or begins to play favorites, it loses any moral authority to conduct its primary role and citizens begin to take the matter into their own hands. That is what BLM was all about. The problem with BLM is that their premise was wrong, enabled by the politicians and pundits who wanted to foment rebellion. So, for the BLM protestors themselves, they were probably righteous in their motivations (not all, but probably the majority. The people at fault were the ones egging them on. Those are the people who should be on trial. They think Trump egged on his supporters on Jan 6th, what if the same standard were used for the Dems and media re: BLM?
As for mercy, the Bible makes it clear that these are individual acts, not government acts. No where can you find Jesus exhorting the Romans to use mercy. It always lay with the individual. So if someone does you wrong, you should forgive them, but if they broke the law, the government could still punish them. As the victim, you could petition the government for leniency, but you can never petition for leniency for someone against whom YOU are not the victim, you have no standing.
Folks, if you want to take of the American Revolution in an informed way, you need to read Bernard Bailyn. I also recommend the relevant chapters in Murray Rothbard's multi-volume history of early America, "Conceived in Liberty."
British imperialism had a light touch in America, at least as compared to its presence in Ireland, India, and other places. The American Revolution, it can be argued, was carried out in the spirit of white privilege. Fair enough, but it should be noted that privilege was a basic fact of 18th century life. It extended to aristocrats, clergymen, and some people of property. It didn't extend very far to shopkeepers or small farmers and not at all to agricultural workers and city laborers. The concept of white privilege being extended to such people was as radical as was the dictatorship of the proleteriat in a later era.....America didn't treat its indigenous population or Blacks fairly, but it did extend white privilege to Irish, Slavs, Jews, Italians and others who were despised more than privileged in their own lands....These people, my immediate ancestors, were not Anglo-Saxons, but they were willing to embrace the founders of the American Revolution as their progenitors. And that's all to the good. Washington had some flaws, but he steered a better course than DeValera, Nehru, Panch Villa or Kwame Nkrumah. The founders of our nation got a lot of things right. why not celebrate them?
Folks, if you want to tale of the American Revolution in an informed way, you need to read Bernard Bailyn. I also recommend the relevant chapters in Murray Rothbard's multi-volume history of early America, "Conceived in Liberty."
Forgiving does not mean not punishing
Loyalists on my father's side, Patriots on my mothers. Location, location, location- ancestors on my father's side were all in the North, ancestors on my mother's side all in the South. The revolution was a civil war.
Both American civil wars were unusual in that afterwards both sides reconciled fairly quickly. The past is forgotten, old wounds healed. In other nations people on formerly warring sides hold grudges that are centuries old. Civil war could easily break out along old historical lines. There won't be a war between England and America, or Canada and America, or the North and the South.
Especially not the North and the South. Too much mixing. My direct paternal ancestors fought for the North, my direct maternal ancestors who fought, fought for the South. There were a lot more ancestral relatives on my mother's side here in the 1860 timeframe. You've heard Civil War stories about father vs son, brother vs brother, uncle vs nephew... and I can documents every one of them on my mother's side. I can also see that in the Battle of Drewry's Bluff where my southern ancestral relatives manned the artillery that fired upon my 2G and 3G grandfathers. They all lived through the war.
Now, which side would I have been on the Revolution? Flip a coin- none of us actually know. Which side would I want to be on? The winning side, obviously, but in 1776, no one yet knew which side that would be. TBH, knowing history, I don't have a preference. However, I suspect that slavery would have existed a lot longer in the Americas had the Loyalists prevailed. Post war, the Brits had little economic interest in slavery making it easier for the anti-slavery forces to prevail.
In our own Civil War, I would like to think I'd have been on the side of the North. But there's no way to know. I'm not alive then, I'm alive now.
As for the poll question- it is rather open ended. Doesn't specify OUR government. The correct answer is obviously yes. The patriots of the Battle of Athens (1946) were justified in their actions. The East Germans who tore down the wall were justified. The execution of the Ceaușescu's was justified though likely unlawful. The death of Mussolini- the same.
The real question is- When is violence against a legitimate government justified? Or to rephrase it- When does a government become illegitimate? Ofttimes, the answer depends on who wins.
It's similar to the way a lot of Trump supporters would like to go easy on those who broke into the Capitol even as they also wish that violence didn't happen. And by the way, I don't notice anyone saying they wish there had been more violence on January 6th.
You, of course, are ignoring the possibility that FBI and capitol police were involved in creating the event. The only real violence was against Trump supporters. Breaking windows is approved by such Democrat politicians as the Mayor of Baltimore and the Speaker of the House, as long as it is not in DC.
"Going easy" on misdemeanor accused does not involve a year in prison and solitary confinement for singing the national anthem.
so called blm is a militia, that targets law enforcement and private property, it's headed by an actual terrorist who bombed the capitol building, but who operates behind a non profit front
some places like seattle even minneapolis have learned the lesson, but portland and austin have not,
Our Constitution says if the government becomes tyrannical the citizens have a RIGHT to change that government... even by taking up arms.
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation….
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness… it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
Clearly the Second Amendment was included to keep the government in the hands of the people. It wasn’t included to allow just for hunting, target shooting, or self protection!
Plus President Lincoln said, "The people of these United States are the rightful masters of both Congresses and Courts. Not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
Bob_R said...
It's interesting to read the Declaration and realize how weak the list of grievances is. Where are the gulags? Star chamber justice? Mass executions? Confiscation of land? "
TAXATION without REPRESENTATION IS CONFISCATION OF ONES PROPERTY..
to me, a loyalist is someone who cannot see their own side's corruption. all while they watch Rachel Maddow and hang on her every lie.
i've mentioned jay winiks the great upheaval, for the over all background and character sketches of the lead players, in comparison with the major players in france and Russia,
the American revolution encouraged catherine's enlightenment instincts, but the jacobin turn made her shut down reform, and so things were frozen for seventy five years till alexander 2nd, this led to the rise of the narodniki anarchists,
so called blm is a militia, that targets law enforcement and private property
Some, Select... Including invading neighborhoods to intimidate families and residents to take a knee, beg, ... Deja vu.
That said, Baby Lives Matter (BLM).
If you burn down my business because you were inspired by the lies put forth by the media, I'm not going to forgive the arsonist or the media liar.
7:46
#Temujin.
I come here for the Temujin.
Loyalism goes in both directions.
When Trump says "Only I can fix it" and his supporters think "yes -that's true" - that is some bizarre loyalism.
When you read the Declaration, you sense how weak it is, but when you read Hutchinson, you see how dishonest it is.
A people have a fundamental right to govern themselves. Period. The list of grievances need only be one -- that America no longer wants to be ruled by a king with absolute power or by a foreign parliament.
Enough of these autocrats who think that the people have only those liberties that the autocrats allow them.
Remember -- the Revolutionary War was NOT an offensive war against the lawful government. It was a defensive effort to resist tyranny against the people. The British military government, at the urging of Parliament and the King, wanted to impose their absolute will upon people, and the People said, "Hell no."
I'm shocked, SHOCKED, that people are bad-mouthing American Independence.
Folks, if you want to take of the American Revolution in an informed way, you need to read Bernard Bailyn.
We have the writings of the Founders and of the British. I would think that the original sources would be plenty informed.
Woman: Who are you?
Man: I am George, your king.
Woman: Well, I didn't vote for you.
King George: You don't vote for kings.
Woman : Well how'd you become king then?
King George: By conquest, murder and intrigue, and hereditary right.
Common Sense: No man in his senses can say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very honourable one. A French bastard landing with an armed Banditti and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original.
Anyone who took more than a few seconds to think about it would answer "justified" to the poll question. The concept that it is never justified to use violence against a government is absurd to the point of insanity. I could come up with multiple scenarios that would get 90%+ approval for violence; 100% is impossible due to both pacifists that approach too dumb to live territory and individuals who would actually approve of the horribles I would describe.
Consider how people have responded to the last two years of government bullshit with regards to Covid (masks, lockdowns, mandated jabs), and you'll probably get a pretty good idea which side they'd be on should the shit hit the fan.
The British military government, at the urging of Parliament and the King, wanted to impose their absolute will upon people, and the People said, "Hell no."
Ben Franklin spent years in England trying to negotiate peaceful resolution of the differences, which sometimes alienated his friends at home.
In 1757, he was sent to England by the Pennsylvania Assembly as a colonial agent to protest against the political influence of the Penn family, the proprietors of the colony. He remained there for five years, striving to end the proprietors' prerogative to overturn legislation from the elected Assembly and their exemption from paying taxes on their land. His lack of influential allies in Whitehall led to the failure of this mission.
George III and Lord North were responsible for the failure of Franklin's mission.
While touring Ireland, he was deeply moved by the level of poverty he witnessed. The economy of the Kingdom of Ireland was affected by the same trade regulations and laws that governed the Thirteen Colonies. Franklin feared that the American colonies could eventually come to the same level of poverty if the regulations and laws continued to apply to them.
Probably not but the intransigence he met and the scorn with which he was treated were finally to end his mission.
Hopes for a peaceful solution ended as he was systematically ridiculed and humiliated by Solicitor-General Alexander Wedderburn, before the Privy Council on January 29, 1774. He returned to Philadelphia in March 1775, and abandoned his accommodationist stance.
The rest, as they say, is history. Only a surrender by the colonies would have kept the peace.
In 1772, Franklin obtained private letters of Thomas Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver, governor and lieutenant governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, proving that they had encouraged the Crown to crack down on Bostonians.
We can look at Canada today and see what the American colonies would look like now.
Blogger Can Of Cheese for Hunter said...
"Loyalism goes in both directions.
When Trump says "Only I can fix it" and his supporters think "yes -that's true" - that is some bizarre loyalism."
When all you had for a choice was Hillary or Biden... it's true, Trump was they only one who could fix it.
Would I been a loyalist? Hell no. I never would've joined a bunch of craven conformists who wanted to be ruled by a parliment 3000 miles away? Absurd. Go read the Declaration of Independence. Sure, Tom jefferson "stretched the truth some", but mostly its accurate.
OTOH, how passionate would I have been to the American cause? Would I have joined the army? That's a toughie. That's why I have such Respect for Washingon, Madison, Adams, etc. these guys had a lot to lose. And put it all on the line. As Franklin said: "We must hang together, Gentlemen. Or most assuradly, we will all hang separately". Paul Harvey did a great radio bit where he went over all the Signers of the Declaration and how they lost fortunes, farms, families, and their lives fighting for American Independence.
If they'd seen how it all turned out, they wouldn't have bothered. Maybe the Loyalists were right. It couldn't have turned out any worse.
Just reading throught the comments. Can we stop equating BLM and Antifa with the Capital Hill rioters? We now the facts. We have two protesters killed directly or indirectly by the police, and a couple other policeman/rioters who died for medical reasons. The rioters killed NO ONE.
There was no damage to the Capital building. There was no burning or looting. I'm not going to defend rowdy pushing back and forth with police. But out the 1,000 or so that entered the Capital, 90% "Stayed within the ropes" and did nothing.
The MSM has lied about Jan 6th for over a year. Just like they lied about Trump-Russia Collusion for 3 years. Its been a tidal waves of fakery and deception. Sadly, the Center-right is always too stupid or too cowardly to fight back effectively.
I’d wager good money the Democrats approving of violence against the government would be higher if Republicans were in charge.
THere's a guy called Ray Epps who was leading the charge into the captial building. He also was involved in so-called "Pipe bombs" (remember those?). At first he was on the FBI most wanted list, but he was quickly taken off it. And when Conservative media tried to get the FBI/DoJ to explain why, and why he wasn't being indicted, they clamed up.
Its obvious that Ray Epps who lead the break-in, is and was an FBI asset. Here's the link:
https://www.revolver.news/2021/12/damning-new-details-massive-web-unindicted-operators-january-6/
BTW, most loyalists were just Brits who had recently arrived from Great Britain or hadn't really put down roots in America. They still considered themselves British who lived in America, rather than Americans.
The Frontiersmen contained few loyalists. And most of the non-English types: the Pennsylvannia "Deutch" and Hudson Valley Dutch were almost all "Rebels". OTOH, you had a lot of Loyalists in NYC.
BTW, I loved the flashback to your July 2016 post. Even more enjoyable were the comments, especially the "The most important thing was how it affected black people" ones.
“ Common Sense: No man in his senses can say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very honourable one. A French bastard landing with an armed Banditti and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original.”
First identified Hayden ancestor of mine was apparently one of his Banditi. Or the son of one. He was Thomas de Heydon (of Highdown - which is still a place name in England - I have the Highdown.com domain and get something weekly involving some Highdown related organization there). The reference comes from maybe 1090. Over the next half a millennium, Heydon became Hayden, before three younger sons immigrated here, indentured, in the 1630s (big fall from grace, from being a cousin of Ann Boleyn, and thus QE1).
Both of my parents’ paternal lines fought as rebels in the American Revolution. My mother’s paternal ancestor there was a Captain in the Connecticut Militia, and she was one of only two in her DAR chapter to having had the last name of her Revolutionary War ancestor match their own maiden name. Her direct paternal line also fought in the War of 1812, Civil War, and WW I & II, her father having been an Army Colonel who ended his career on a Nazi War Crimes Tribunal.
A pretty good book about the Loyalists is "Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World," by Maya Jasanoff. It focuses on the roles of Loyalist and Patriot mobs and militia in the War.
Anglicans, and Anglican ministers in particular, were inclined to be Loyalist. The Rev. Jonathan Boucher delivered sermons with a pair of pistols resting on his pulpit.
“Just reading throught the comments. Can we stop equating BLM and Antifa with the Capital Hill rioters? We now the facts. We have two protesters killed directly or indirectly by the police, and a couple other policeman/rioters who died for medical reasons. The rioters killed NO ONE.”
“There was no damage to the Capital building. There was no burning or looting. I'm not going to defend rowdy pushing back and forth with police. But out the 1,000 or so that entered the Capital, 90% "Stayed within the ropes" and did nothing. “
The Dems stole the election, including the Presidency and at least three Senate seats, 14 months ago. Hundreds of peaceful protesters who showed up to protest the theft of the election almost a year ago, have been jailed in horrible conditions for many months without an opportunity for bail. This was done by the illegally installed Biden Administration. People have been arrested and held without bail who never entered the Capital. Meanwhile the AntiFA, and likely FBI, instigators, and committers of the actual violence that day, remain free. This is patently unconstitutional. That’s apparently justified because they won, and we lost. The DOJ and FBI continue to hold these nonviolent protesters, while releasing extremely violent AntiFA and BLM protesters, giving them a slap on the hand if not a complete dismissal of charges. So much for Equal Justice for All. Meanwhile Kevin Clinesmith, the only DOJ/FBI employee arrested for RussiaGate, was convicted of lying to the FISC (court), and forged evidence, in order to fraudulently acquire FISA warrants on Carter Page, as well as the Trump campaign. Worse, he was readmitted last week to the DC bar despite not having completed his parole yet.
And that’s the problem. The Dems are using our federal government to prosecute (and persecute) their political enemies. And they are getting away with it.
The Hudson Valley Dutch being mostly rebels is not what I had heard. The HV was a hotbed of loyalists, and since it was mostly Dutch settlers, that implies Dutch descended loyalists. There were key players on the Patriot side who were Dutch, but the overall community was divided.
At www.uelac.org/loyalist-info/loyalist_list.php United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada and click over to the Vs. Names beginning with “van” are almost always Dutch, and most on this list are Hudson Valley Dutch. Some of the other names are also Dutch. The Story of how John Flewelling was captured by the Revolutionaries is interesting.
Post-war every Frenchman during WWII was a resistance fighter. Post revolution every Dutchman in the Hudson Valley was a Patriot.
Anglicanism was a big factor in determining who was a Tory, especially in New York. If you were loyal to the Church of England, you were likely to be loyal to its head, the king.
New Englanders tended to be Congregationalists, connected by tradition and sometimes by ancestry to Cromwell's Roundheads. They were determined anti-monarchists.
The Scots, who largely settled in North Carolina, had -- if they were Highlanders -- twice rebelled against the Hanoverian kings, but they weren't in the mood to do it again, so many of them threw in with the royalists.
The Revolution made strange bedfellows. In some places the rich were Tories, but if the wealthy planters or merchants were for the Revolution, people further down on the social scale might opt for the loyalists. Then as now, politics were local. In South Carolina, lowland planters might have quarrels with London that upcountry pioneers didn't share, so some of the poorer backwoodsmen were more sympathetic to the Tory cause.
“To want no punishment for law breakers is not an expression of approval of the wrong they have done. Many people value forgiveness. Many have taken to heart the teachings of Jesus: "Turn the other cheek," "Judge not, that ye be not judged," "Today you will be with me in Paradise"...”
Oh my.
In most of these elections, we are offered two poor choices. People pick what they perceive to be the lesser of two evils.
Why vote for the lesser evil? Cthulu For President!
When I was a late teenager and read Kenneth Roberts' "Oliver Wiswell" (which tells the story of the Revolution from the Loyalist perspective), I wondered how I -- a member of a privileged family -- would have responded to the Revolution. But now I know that my great-great-great-great-grandfather, a prosperous farmer, left his home in New Hampshire to lead a small contingent of militia to Bunker Hill. I think I would have marched with him.
What Bruce Hayden said...@ 5:32PM
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